"Demons as mirrors, reflecting the hidden currents of human nature; foreshadowing and suspense interwoven, strange without losing compassion, the persistence of ordinary people kindling a faint light in the dark. Each unit reaches its own climax yet together they build a world, with precisely paced emotion—cruel and tender in equal measure, a model of ensemble strange-tale writing."
—Jury comment, Peking University Internet Literature Research Forum, "2025 Three Peerless Works of Yanyan"

"With folk custom and the strange as its surface and the exploration of human nature as its bone, it awakens care for humanity in a gentle, ornate style."
—Jury comment, 2024 "China Internet Literature Influence Ranking"

"Mi Hua is a writer of inventive spirit. She excels at drawing creative resources from rich traditional culture. When internet literature returns to the age of myth and begins to narrate through mythic thinking, the author can give full rein to imagination, and the novel fills with a vivid, multicolored sense of flight."
—Yue Wen, deputy editor-in-chief and researcher, "Wenyi Bao"

"Mi Hua's two great works are truly wonderful, like stumbling upon treasure. The characters are vivid, the stories crafted with care, and the truths are plain yet linger long in the mind."
—A reader

★ Song Cao, an immortal ghost-warden who carries a fish-headed lantern and wears a soul-guiding bell at her waist, died in the Song dynasty and lay buried alive for a hundred years. She walked the human world for a thousand years, taken for a heartless deity, when her whole life had but one purpose—to search for a departed friend whose soul has long since scattered.
★ This is a strange-tale novel that does not read like one. Its ghosts and demons do not frighten—they ferry people across; its attachments are not things to let go of—they are worth walking a thousand years for. It gazes at the joys and sorrows of the human world through a ghost-immortal's eyes, writing of spirits, until by the last page you find it has been writing of ourselves.
★ An anthology in structure, each story stands alone yet shares one strange-tale universe. Readers call it "cruel and tender in equal measure, strange without losing its compassion."
★ It has been named to the China Writers Association's 2024 "China Internet Literature Influence Ranking," the fourth Internet Literature Youth List, and the 2025 "Three Peerless Works of Yanyan," and is collected by the National Library of China's Version Library. Its paid readership has surpassed one million, its column holds a 9.9 rating, and both its film-and-TV rights and publication rights have been sold.

Song Cao died in the third year of the Zhidao era, and in one leap ascended to become an immortal ghost-warden. She lay trapped in her coffin for a hundred and ten years, moving from despair to a dead heart, and at last to a still heart.

"Forget it, accept it, don't hate, don't resent... because everything has truly long since scattered to the winds. Greed, anger, folly, pride, and doubt; resentment, fury, vexation, and annoyance—these are nothing but repeated torment of oneself."

For a thousand years people called her the Lady of Fengdu's Ruler, ruthless in her means. Yet toward the good she always held compassion. She walked through deep mountains and old forests, carrying a fish-headed lantern and wearing a soul-guiding bell at her waist, robed in white, her gaze clear. People took her for a heartless deity, not knowing that her whole life was spent searching for one departed friend.

On Mount Baitou she once saved a sauce-selling girl, Xiao Liu—born plain, unloved by her mother, and left, after her father's death, to hold up a household at a tender age; when she fled a bandits' den she still thought to carry along the wounded young gentleman Su Mian. But deep love met a shallow fate: to win Su Mian, Xiao Liu's own elder sister gave up ten years of her life and a child, trading away Xiao Liu's very existence and rewriting Su Mian's memory. Xiao Liu was bound inside a pickle jar in the river, watching it all happen as an outsider. Later a sheep-demon ruined her voice and kicked her out of the jar, and she began a new life like a reed, marrying the lame Si Jiu to run a wonton shop. And Su Mian, once he remembered everything, spent his life laying out a retreat for her. In a spirit-awareness of corpses and blood, Song Cao once reached out her hand to a wronged courtesan, A Wu.

All her life she carried her lantern, searching, and ferried countless lost souls across—only to find, in the end, that the hardest soul to ferry was her own attachment.

Mi Hua
With nearly 30 works to her name, her style is distinctive and delicate, spanning urban romance, historical romance, and fantasy. In 2023 she was honored as Zhihu's "New Knowledge Creator" and named a Top 10 author of the first Short-Story Influence Ranking. Her representative works include "Yidu: A Record of Strange Demons," "The Fish-Lantern Guide to Souls," "Tangmu Still," "The Crow's Bell," and "Lang Huai You Yu." Drawing inspiration from the "Shan Hai Jing," she has built a distinctive world of strange tales and earned the reputation among readers of "Mi Hua's work, always a gem." "Yidu: A Record of Strange Demons" is published in print, its radio-drama adaptation is airing, and its film and TV rights have been sold. "The Fish-Lantern Guide to Souls" has sold both its film-and-TV rights and publication rights, and an audio-drama adaptation is now streaming.

Vol. 1: A Contract of Souls
Chapter 1 The Immortal in the Jar
Chapter 2 My Name Is Su Mian
Chapter 3 The Sheep-Demon Qian Ji
Chapter 4 The Yin-Yang Contract
Chapter 5 Xiao Liu and Si Jiu
Chapter 6 Little Mute, How It Hurts
Vol. 2: Flowers in the Mirror, Moon in the Water
Chapter 7 Sister Lan and Brother Mi
Chapter 8 At the Residence of Duke Guo
Chapter 9 Magistrate Wu Yong
Chapter 10 The Drifting Girl Comes Ashore
Chapter 11 Look Not at What Is Improper
Chapter 12 Huang Xiaoshou Cries Injustice
Chapter 13 The Third Miss Guo
Chapter 14 The Heir Guo Ling

(Concluding Volume)
Vol. 1: The Fish-Lantern Guide
Chapter 1 The Death of Qiu Yu
Chapter 2 The Fish-Lantern Guide
Chapter 3 The Kang Spirit Immortal and the Corpse-Spirit Lord
Chapter 4 The Warden Song Cao
Chapter 5 From Now On I Will Not Come
Chapter 6 The Water-Moon Demon Mirror
Vol. 2: The Departed Are but Dew and Dust
Chapter 7 The Courtesan A Wu
Chapter 8 Lady Cheng, Li Chunjun
Chapter 9 Escape to Life
Chapter 10 The Conference of the Underworld
Chapter 11 Dong Yilang Kills a God
Chapter 12 The Deathless Body
Chapter 13 The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons
Chapter 14 Shennong A Mi
Afterword: The Return to the Ruins
Side Story: Together to White Hair
Side Story: The Poisonous Mushroom
Editor's Afterword